Taimanin Asagi

It is a well-known fact that the voicework of legendary seiyuu, "Emperor" Norio Wakamoto, is capable of causing orgasms. If you weren't aware of this, I don't know what corner of the online anime world you've been hiding in for the past several years. But don't worry; you haven't been hiding alone. Most hentai producers have been sitting right there next to you, not noticing the goldmine that is Emperor Wakamoto. Until Taimanin Asagi. Suddenly, someone at PIXY had a fantastic idea: cast Wakamoto as an all-powerful sex demon in a hentai, and just let his voice do the rest. This is agreat concept; frankly, I was sold on Taimanin Asagi simply by that fact alone. However, it seems someone at PIXY didn't get the memo. Instead of running with the idea that Wakamoto's voice would accomplish the (viewer's) goal for most pornographic material, this idiot decided they needed some sort of INTERESTING STORY, excessively EDGY PRESENTATION, and, of course, TENTACLE RAPE. Then this person got it into their head that these elements would carry the show, and that they wouldn't need The Voice of the Heavens UNTIL THE VERY LAST EPISODE. And this is why Taimanin Asagi isn't the greatest hentai ever made. It's also why I can't simply write "ALL HAIL EMPEROR WAKAMOTO'S HENTAI!" as my review. Well, that and both my dignity and my pride, which dictate that I bore you with two or three pages of analysis when all you really care about is the little number at the top right that tells you whether or not I share your taste in erotica. Taimanin Asagi is a tentacle rape hentai that focuses on retired demon-hunter/ninja Asagi. A past nemesis, Oboro, returns from the grave and enslaves Asagi, forcing her to take part in some sort of colosseum of rape. For this event, she modifies Asagi's body to take orgasmic levels of pleasure from any sort of tactile sensation. Add in Asagi's younger sister, Sakura, who is also a ninja, then rape them both to hell and back, then also rape Oboro, and finally throw in the Vicious voice of Wakamoto, and VOILA! Taimanin Asagi! Needless to say, if you're not a fan of rape or tentacles, this is probably going to be abhorrent, and I will say now that if you don't like these things, it is NOT worth sitting through them to get to the tootsie roll center of the tootsie pop (I'm obviously talking about yellow-ball/ninja-master Norio Wakamoto). This is some of the most hardcore rape I've ever seen; it borders on torture. I lack the technical terminology to describe what goes on without painting a picture for those who'd rather avoid the mental image, but let's just say that...uh...you can quite easily see what happens when you insert large moving objects into smaller...uh...female anatomy. Anyways, the story. It's sort of okay, actually, at least insofar as there IS a story. It doesn't always manage to make sense, though, and the storytelling is quite disjointed. Exactly how the girls were confined or forced into what they did is a bit unclear, forcing me to attribute it to Hentai Female Lead Incompetence Syndrome (HFLIS, for short, but you can just pronounce it SI-FI-LIS, since it's close enough, really). So, yeah, apparently the females all have HFLIS, encouraging demon after demon to rape them. I really don't get it. I guess it's Oboro's revenge, but she works for Bison, known in this anime pretty much only as Black-sama, who facilitates the whole thing for reasons that are completely unknown. Apparently he finds it amusing. Hey, an all-powerful demon has to do SOMETHING in his spare time, and I suppose he has already beaten the 255th level of Pac-Man. Logically speaking, the only things left to do after that are watching girls get raped and conquering the world, and, well, he's just not ready to get around to the latter. Obviously, I don't have anything interesting to say about the story. It has some tonal problems as a rape and revenge plot, though, namely it rides that line between emotional breakdown for the victims and them actually enjoying it. It wasn't really clear what was going on in the end, since they didn't ACT like they particularly wanted to escape their situation. Granted, stories like this one often have that problem; balancing the two is awkward, and leaning to one side or the other is either crass or a disturbing turn-off. Other than that, I guess the one-and-a-half action sequences in the show were all right, though I guess that more appropriately falls into the realm of animation. Because I fail at transitions today, I am going to talk about the characters (not the animation: that would have been a GOOD transition). Taimanin Asagi has precisely one good character; you may know him as Senbei, genie of misfortune. By that, I obviously mean Edwin Black, voiced by Norio Wakamoto. He is simply above everything, aloof yet still apparently evil. Not that his character is well-written; it is merely well-voiced. But good GOD, what a voice! Asagi is strong-willed, I guess, but that does her little good as she is broken by her demonic captors. Rather, she's like on the verge of breaking the whole time, and it is really unclear what her mental state is. This isn't intentional ambiguity; it's poor writing. I find there to be nothing noteworthy about Sakura, and Oboro is basically just a typical evil demon bitch. So yeah, aside from Edwin von Blackenthal, there's nothing here that you haven't seen before. What Taimanin Asagi has that you HAVEN'T seen before is in its visual presentation. Animators have long sought to replicate the feel of traditional filming techniques to enhance the realism of their works. This led to such things as digital lens flares, artificial changes in focus, and floating the camera to replicate the steadiness problems of hand-held cameras. Taimanin Asagi takes these techniques to their logical extreme. The camera position and focus are both constantly shifting, making it seem like Taimanin Asagi was somehow filmed by a complete and total novice. This is distracting, but it does add to the overall energy of the production, dizzying though it might be. The animation itself is...interesting. I wouldn't say it is especially fluid, nor is it devoid of still-shots and looping, but the sex animations are on meth. I mean that it's like they animated standard hentai sex scenes, AND THEN DOUBLED THE FRAME-RATE WITHOUT DOUBLING THE FRAME-COUNT. This, too, is dizzying. At that rate, it becomes hard to follow what is going on. Pair this with overly-zoomed-in camera-work and generally lack-luster camera angles (talk about visual clutter and sight obstructions), and you get a show where you could swear that a ton of stuff is happening but be unable to tell (even vaguely) what that 'stuff' is. Regarding the character designs, it's fairly standard stuff, but the eye-designs are...soulless (they look almost like mind-controlled eyes). I don't know if this is an intentional effect or a random art choice, but it's not my thing. On the plus-side, though, the art quality is pretty decent, and the lighting is better than I've come to expect from this style of show. Back to the sex, though. Although I said it before, first things are first: this OVA is entirely rape (well, save for the scene where Oboro is throwing herself on Black's whole horse, if you know what I mean). Not only that, but it's pretty brutal rape, and it's often gangbanging, whether by human or demon. Taimanin Asagi prominently features ABSURD AMOUNTS of thick, bubbly semen (sometimes with complementary pubic hairs, free of charge!), and the...uh...heroines often...uh...swish it around in their mouths and/or gag on it and/or puke it out in a manner that confuses me a bit (it, like, jumps out of their throats of its own accord; that's right: sentient, mobile semen). This design choice is hit-or-miss, to say the least. It does nothing for me (okay, it does SOMETHING: namely grossing me out). However, it appeals to some people. So does a particular facial expression, one that I believe is called "ahegao," and the females of Taimanin Asagi wear this expression a truly staggering amount of the time. (The ahegao is a face of sexual ecstasy, eyes rolled up and tongue lolling.) Just like this show's bubblegum manseed, the ahegao is hit-or-miss. I do not find it to be erotic. In summary, the big three things about the sex (brutal rape, super-semen, and mindless-ecstasy faces) don't appeal to me. Obviously, I didn't enjoy the sex scenes much. Aside from the stupid-fast animation speed and what I believe to be poor cinematography, the sex was not...bad...it just didn't appeal to me. There was plenty of oral and vaginal sex, plus some boobjobs and handjobs, as well as tentacle rape of every orifice. The actual positions involved, though not portrayed very clearly, are quite diverse, some of which were made possible only be the amazing power of tentacles to lift and twist. There was also some S&M/Bondage, obviously of the non-consensual variety. After all, since when has hentai shown that actual S&M/Bondage is an agreement between all individuals involved? Anyways, that's about it for the sex, except for Sakura's breasts, which are HUGE. Sorry, let me try that again: THEY'RE. FUCKING. HUGE. They probably have moons in orbit around them due to their colossal mass. Other than her, the average breast size was still pretty large, which is totally normal for hentai. There are no petite builds. Annnnnnnnywho, sound. The score for Taimanin Asagi ranged from unobtrusively minimalist to pulse-pounding techno. It was actually rather good, although I thought the music towards the beginning and towards the end was better than in the middle. In general, the series used synths of the ominous or overbearing variety (often synth-strings), with the occasional oriental-style woodwind. Sometimes there were electric guitars, probably because electric guitars are HARDCORE. When it comes to the voice acting, Chiyo-chan's dadcat was obviously fantastic, so it's more enlightening to talk about the voice acting OTHER than that of Wakamoto. It was generally competent, although Sakura's voice was HIGH (oh so very high), which is typical yet annoying. However, a noteworthy thing occurs during the sex scenes. Remember the whole thing about ahegao? Well, a funny thing happens when you try to talk with your tongue lolling out of your mouth: you slur all your speech. (This also often happens when hentai ladies attempt to discuss the details of the oral pleasuring of a male WHILE DOING SO.) Also, remember when I said that Taimanin Asagi has a staggering amount of ahegao? Well, this assessment can be heard to apply even when you can't see the characters' faces. Yes, the girls will slur EVERYTHING they say. Your mileage will vary on whether or not this pseudo-cutesy slurring is erotic or not. For some reason, I actually do. Just sayin'. It does still gross me out a bit, but...yeah. Still, though, not as orgasmic as Woodchuck as he chucks wood, if you know what I mean; Wakamoto is still the best part of all of the audio of Taimanin Asagi. Really, I'm out of ideas here. It's late at night, my brain is fried, and I did not NEARLY get as much hailing of Britannia from this as I had hoped when I learned that the Emperor is the OVA's Big Bad. In summary, Taimanin Asagi is really a hit-or-miss show. A lot of its non-Wakamoto appeal is going to rely on whether or not it is personal fetish material and whether you happen to think that the visual presentation is avant-garde in a GOOD way. My own answers to those are "no" and "no," so Taimanin Asagi did not turn out to be my kind of thing. ALL HAIL THE EMPEROR'S HENTAI!!! But really, you might want to watch Urotsukidoji instead for your animated sex with a side of Wakamoto. I hear that one's classic, and it ALSO has tentacles. Win-win, right? ...Right?